ISRAEL: "Psychological damage" from not being circumcised - rabbi

New levels of sophistry here!

Haaretz
January 9, 2014

Rabbis to court: Uncircumcised boy will suffer 'serious psychological damage'

by Yair Ettinger
The legal adviser to the rabbinical court submitted Thursday its ruling on the appeal by a mother who is opposed to having her son circumcised. “On the altar of the petitioner’s right to freedom of religion, she is suggesting that she will ignore the irreversible psychological damage that is liable to be caused to the child due to his being an exception in the society of the children around him - and that must not be done!” the ruling stated.

The adviser, attorney Rabbi Shimon Yaakobi, is asking the High Court of Justice to reject the petition of the mother - who petitioned the High Court after the rabbinical court ordered her to pay 500 shekels a day ($143) until she agrees to have her son circumcised - and to cancel the interim injunction postponing the implementation of the Supreme Rabbinical Court ruling.

The baby’s parents are in the midst of divorce proceedings, and disagree on performing the circumcision. The rabbinical court accepted the husband’s viewpoint and ruled that the baby must be circumcised by a doctor in a hospital. But three weeks ago the High Court issued an interim injunction postponing implementation of the ruling.

Yaakobi replied to the petition on behalf of the rabbinical courts, and is basing his position on a case from 1998 in which the High Court rejected a petition filed against the health minister by the Ben Shalem association, which lobbies against circumcision. The High Court rejected the petition in a brief ruling, but Yaakobi cites at length from the reply of the state, which says, among other things, that “the point of view is that the welfare of the child requires performing a circumcision, both for religious reasons and due to the social perspective and the social consensus regarding the essence of circumcision.”

Yaakobi also quotes from another High Court decision several years earlier, which addressed whether a Jewish woman who had joined a messianic Christian group could raise her children in that spirit, contrary to the opinion of her husband, from whom she was getting divorced. According to Yaakobi, High Court President Meir Shamgar distinguished between “physical custody,” which would be given to the mother, and “spiritual custody,” which would remain with the Jewish father.

“Differences of opinion between parents on matters of their world view, including their religious world view, do not meant that the dispute is not justiciable, as the petitioner suggests - neither in terms of the welfare of the child nor in terms of the child’s rights,” wrote Yaakobi. “Children have a right not to have their religion changed without their knowledge. Since they are still incapable of forming an opinion, it is the role of the state to protect their right not to have their religion changed, and to protect them from attempts of this kind. This above-mentioned role of the state is reinforced when it comes to a family in crisis, in other words, when the parents are not of the same opinion. In that case, the children were born and brought up as Jews. In their family and their natural environment they are surrounded by Jews. The children did not express any desire to join the mother’s sect.”

So they admit that children have rights. The rabbis seem to think that children are born with religion but no knowledge or opinions. Strange.

Yaakobi also supports his reply with a survey cited on the Ynet website in 2007, according to which 97 percent of Jews in Israel will circumcise their sons. [So this one can be like the 3% who aren't.]
“The minor child who is the object of this affair was born to a normal Jewish-Israeli family,” he wrote. “In their natural surroundings the couple and their children are surrounded by Jews who perform circumcisions on their sons. In a year or two the minor will attend a nursery school where he will be surrounded by children who were circumcised, and it is no secret that toddlers are capable of noticing anything unusual, and enough said.

“The petitioner, who wants her young toddler to experience a feeling of superfluous exceptionalism that is liable to lead to feelings of inferiority and a serious psychological harm, is not doing the right thing. The petitioner does not have the good of the child at heart. The child has a right not to be different from his friends who were circumcised. The good of the child and his right to be circumcised like every Jewish child in Israel cannot be a sacrifice - in contradiction of the wishes of the child’s father - on the altar of the petitioner’s right to freedom from religion.” [No mention of the child's freedom of and from religion.]

OTTAWA: DIY Circumciser loses his appeal

The Calgary Herald
November 16, 2012

Father who circumcised his son on the kitchen floor loses high court appeal

OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada has abruptly dismissed the appeal of a British Columbia man who tried to circumcise his four-year-old son on his kitchen floor with a carpet-cutting blade.

The boy needed corrective surgery to repair the damage from the botched procedure.

In a 7-0 ruling from the bench, the justices left intact a Court of Appeal ruling convicting the man of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.

The man, identified only as DJW, was convicted at trial in October 2009 of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and acquitted on the two assault charges.

The appeal court restored convictions on the assault counts and stayed the negligence charge, conditional on the conviction for aggravated assault.

The man's appeal to the Supreme Court sought to have the assault charges thrown out again, but the justices dismissed the case from the bench, saying their reasons would be available in 48 hours.

The original trial was told the man felt his religious beliefs required that his son be circumcised. Doctors advised him to wait until the child was older and stronger before performing the procedure.

In its factum on the case, the Crown dismissed the religious reasoning.

"This is a case about child abuse," the Crown argued. "This is not a case about the applicant's religious freedom or circumcision generally." [But how do the material circumstances of the operation bear on the man's religious freedom or circumcision generally? If he had done it "properly" would it no longer be child abuse? How does this differ except in detail from Dr Andrew Freedman of the AAP Task Force on Circumcision, who circumcised his own son on his parents' kitchen table?]

DJW's lawyer argued that the man took safety precautions, including extensive research on the topic of circumcision.

"The appellant's actions were performed with reasonable cause ... and without intent to assault or in any way harm his son," the factum said.

The trial judge found the kitchen was not a sanitary place for a surgical procedure [Someone should tell Dr Freedman], that the blade used wasn't as sharp as a surgical instrument and it was inappropriate to use a veterinary product to try and staunch the bleeding from the boy's partly severed foreskin.

DJW's religious background was as a Jehovah's Witness, although he was "disfellowshipped" by his family and the church. The Crown said his religious education and associations later led him to believe that male circumcision was a covenant with God.

He attempted to circumcise himself in 2005 and could not stop the bleeding. He had to go to an emergency room where a doctor sutured the wound.

His name is under a publication ban to protect the child's identity.

Earlier story

OTTAWA: DIY Circumciser to be heard by top court

Canada.com
November 15, 2012

Top court hears botched home circumcision case Friday

By Natalie Stechyson
OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada will hear on Friday the dramatic case of a B.C. father who, for religious reasons, tried to circumcise his four-year-old son on his kitchen floor with a carpet blade and a blood coagulant meant for horses.

Among the many issues the court will have to consider is the meaning of criminal negligence, and whether religious beliefs can go into the determination of what is reasonable behaviour, said Carissima Mathen, a law professor at the University of Ottawa.

“When you have something like this where, on an objective basis, the benefits of this procedure are mixed, and it seems like the primary motivation for circumcising your son is cultural or religious, are those beliefs something that we should factor into whether this a reasonable thing for someone to have done?” Mathen said.

“It raises questions such as why is it, in fact, that we permit infant circumcision?”

A trial judge found that over the years after his son’s birth, the father known only as D.J.W. decided to “make things right with God” by following the laws of Moses, according to court documents. This included circumcision.

The trial judge found that D.J.W. had consulted with two rabbis and four physicians, and had asked several doctors to perform his son’s circumcision. None would do it because the boy would have required a general anesthetic, which could not be justified for a child so young.

In 2007, after giving his son some homemade honey wine, D.J.W. attempted to circumcise the boy on the kitchen floor, according to court documents, wounding him in the process.

The boy later had to have corrective surgery.

D.J.W. was found guilty in 2009 of criminal negligence causing bodily harm, but was acquitted of two other charges. The B.C. Court of Appeal stayed the conviction and upped the charge to aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.

In delving into the case, the top court will also look at whether the injury D.J.W. inflicted was a “wound” and if the blade he used on his son, known only as D.J., can be considered a “weapon,” said Marie-France Major, a partner at Ottawa’s Supreme Advocacy LLP.

D.J.W. is seeking an acquittal, maintaining that the trial judge was wrong to convict him of criminal negligence, but right to acquit him of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon, according to court documents.

Counsel for D.J.W. will argue that the man’s actions were performed with “reasonable care” and without intent to harm his son.

The Crown will argue that this is a case about child abuse, not D.J.W.’s freedom of religion or even about circumcision.

[“The result,” according to court documents submitted by the Crown, was “the foreskin on D.J.’s penis stuck out like two arms.] “D.J. was not circumcised. He was disfigured,” the Crown’s factum reads.

A decision from Friday’s case is not expected for some time.

Earlier story

DELAWARE: Spanking ruled "physical injury"

HSLDA
September 21, 2012

Child Welfare Legislation Outlaws Spanking

When Governor Jack Markell signed into law Senate Bill 234 on September 12, 2012, Delaware became the first state in the in the nation to effectively outlaw corporal discipline of children by their parents.

Sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Patricia M. Blevins (District 7), the legislation creates a definition of the term “physical injury” in the child abuse and neglect laws to include “pain.” Currently the law permits a parent to use force to punish a child for misconduct, but it prohibits any act that is likely to cause or does cause physical injury. By defining “physical injury” to include the infliction of pain on a child, spanking has become a crime in Delaware punishable by imprisonment.
Under the new law, a parent causing “physical injury” (e.g., pain) to a child under age 18 would be guilty of a class A misdemeanor and subject to one year in prison. A parent causing pain to a child who was 3 years of age or younger would be guilty of a class G felony and subject to two years in prison.

Home School Legal Defense Association opposed this bill as a violation of the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, including the long-recognized right to administer reasonable corporal discipline. HSLDA worked with the Delaware Home Education Association and the Delaware Family Policy Council in an effort to bring about a defeat of this legislation.

View the text of this Bill